THE American jolly that the Prince of Wales is undertaking has drawn a fair bit of comment, not least because of the 30 frocks that the Duchess of Cornwall has taken with her. Thirty frocks, eh? — bang goes all that eyewash, then, about down-home Camilla not being high maintenance like that uppity piece, Diana!

Oh, leave them alone!, tut the suckers-up. But in this case, the personal really is political. It is said that one of Charles Windsor’s aims during his tour of the United States is to make the country more understanding towards Islam, a religion in which he has shown an inordinate interest for many years now. This would be the poor, persecuted underdog Islam, I take it, which already rules 56 nations on this earth of which only a handful — that’ll be a hand with amputated fingers, in Sharia style — are democracies.

That would be the Islam that oppresses its own people — the Lord forbid they should have anything as subversive and grown up as the vote! — and which in Sudan, Bali and beyond murders people of all faiths who have had the sheer nerve to attempt to straighten their necks from under the yoke of the theocrats. This would be the Islam that leads Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth, lest its example of obdurate democracy gives the serfs of the Muslim fiefdoms all around it ideas about freedom.

I wonder why Prince Charles seeks to big up powerful, theocratic Islam — which already controls so much land and wealth and yet will kill and kill to gain more — and not vulnerable, pluralistic Israel? Why doesn’t he invest as much energy in defence of the persecuted and murdered Christians who suffer for their beliefs under Islamic regimes? Well, I think I know why; because cleaving to Islam is the one way that men who wish to appear liberal and enlightened can promote reactionary ideas. Monarch-worshipping, woman-oppressing, non-democratic — what’s there not for Charles to like!

So many frocks to clothe your wife, so many stories to obscure the wrongs of Islam; dress it up how you like, it still stinks of privilege and potentates. But let daylight upon tyranny, and tyranny will wither; how alike they are in this, Islam and monarchy, and all the paranoid decadence their finery conceals!

So bring on regicide, bring on apostasy, bring on apathy even; stand up in a shrugging, smirking sort of way, say “Whatever!” and refuse to bow the knee to bullies, even if you’re not sure why. Faith can come later; all that matters now is insolence. Because by not believing, you keep the faith that ultimately raises us up above the divine right of kings, the madness of the mullah and the bomb in the rucksack, no matter how many times it explodes.

It's your moral duty to sleep around and think of England

AH, THE good old days! Deference! Patriotism! Duty! The White Cliffs of Dover! And, as it turns out, shagging till you fall down exhausted in Leicester Square.

The release of official papers from the National Archives this week showed a side of Britain at War — the Second World War, that is, that point at which the moral compass of Homo sapiens was set once and for all, never to stray. Unless you’re a seat-sniffing Neo-Nazi or a pacifist pervert — which we always saucily hoped for or drearily dreaded, depending on our fun-capacity.

Our girls, apparently, were doing their dashed best to make real the old saw “One yank and they’re off!” to the extent that snobby old queens at Civil Defence deplored the “vicious debauchery” of these “young sluts”.

60,000 British women left this country as GI brides — the highest proportion of females ever to marry into a foreign army, be it in benign or hostile residence — so obviously it wasn’t just a sex thing. But even for all the times that it was — respect! And so much for the prissy idea that sexual promiscuity in some way “weakens” moral fibre.

If we do accept the Second World War as the point at which the moral compass was set, what does the sexual behaviour of both sides tell us? Why, that putting it about is our patriotic duty and a sure way to end up with the good guys on the right side of Nuremberg court- rooms! UK/USA? — hands across the water, and then some! Soviet Union? — no room for bourgeois inhibitions there, comrade! Then look at the villains of the piece. Germany? — totally fixated on the idea that no woman would want to have sex except to breed little Nazis. Japan? — hmm, it’s not for nothing that they use the smallest condoms in the world. And as for those eternal suck-up monkeys the French; well, let’s be honest, no woman looks good — no matter how many things she can do with a Hermès scarf! — with a shaven head and a big sign saying “I screw Nazis, I am scum!” on her back. Trust me, I’ve tried it!

Yep, the fact is that consensual sexual generosity is far more likely to occur in good countries than in evil ones; it is a sign of confidence, not of decadence.

And if people want to sit in judgment of “sluts”, now or then, then I would venture that it says far more about the name-caller than it does the slandered; either that they slept around a lot in their youth and are now trying to hide the evidence by taking the moral high ground, or that they didn’t get none/aren’t getting any. Either way, it’s such a bad look.